


Smells like smoke

by martyrpipedreams



Category: Greenwarden - Elliot Z.
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, didn't mean to make it sad, i can't tag, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:29:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28055412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martyrpipedreams/pseuds/martyrpipedreams
Summary: Some things hurt to remember. Some things dont feel at all and just leave you hollow.Kit remembers a boy from when he was younger and he thinks maybe he doesn't want to remember but he doesn't want to forget either. Because he's already forgot so much. But it hurts.And Marc is there.
Relationships: Marc Bautista/Male Tracker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	Smells like smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Jesus christ I swear I tried so hard on this. Why? I don't have a damn clue.

Kit believed that, if human, life would be beautiful and cruel. Life would be unfair and unforgiving and would lash out against you with deceivingly gentle hands until you ask _why? Why are you like this?_ And life will smile so sweetly and hit you again. 

He had many reasons to believe this but none as concrete as this: when he was younger there was a boy he'd often explore the forest with, never straying far enough to get lost. He remembered nothing of the boy; face, voice, name -- all was lost in the sea of repressed memories in Kit's head. 

He did remember some things though. The boy loved the color green; green shirts, green eyes, had a green bedroom that he and Kit had sat in once, whispering secrets into the soft flesh of each other's lips. He remembered that the boy had soft lips that he loved to press against Kit's hands, face, neck. His hands were soft too: gentle in ways that Kit hadn't felt in years. Caramels were his favorite candy and he hated the smell of smoke and he loved the sound of Kit's fingers on the guitar and Kit, he believed, loved him. 

He also remembered that that boy was long dead, buried six feet under. He took sick solace in the fact that his death had not been a consequence of his own dastardly luck but instead was the consequence of a dead battery in a smoke alarm and space heater.

He tried not to remember these things either. 

But he did, because he wouldn't let himself forget anything else. 

He remembered all of it, all of the little things: things that were probably too intimate for Kit to handle properly. So he didn't. It was partially the reason he was sitting on the ground outside the doors of his shitty motel that smelled too much like moth eaten clothes and poorly scrubbed carpets. 

Smoke curled in the air in front of him, wispy tendrils that drifted away when he raised his bottle of vodka to take another unhealthy chug that tasted like hand sanitizer. Ninety-nine point nine percent of rational thought, gone. The last point one percent had left him thinking of that damn boy. 

_My prince_ , he called Kit. He called him that because he'd come and saved him from the dragon of loneliness and kissed him until it didn't hurt any more and-

Kit choked on the smoke that he pulled from his cigarette. The damn things would kill him before whatever anomaly got a hold of him did. Lung cancer would be a damned way to go out after everything he'd been through. A slow death, slow and draining and painful. 

He probably deserved that. 

The door to his left opened but Kit couldn't bring himself to look away from the buzzing vacancy sign that flickered just by the parking lot exit. Tall grass grew around the bottom of the metal pole, thick and lush in places that allowed flowers -- weeds, mostly -- to persevere. Kit marked that down as one of the beautiful things about life. 

He had a list, actually. 

The beautiful things; flowers, cups of something warm during the winter months, the soft pull of dreamless sleep, Bautista sitting on the hood of his Jeep as he eats through yet another night of shitty fast-food dinner, mattresses that weren't rocks beneath his bruised and scarred back, the boy. 

The ugly things; death, blood seeping from wounds left untreated, sore joints, the burn of alcohol in his stomach, the nightmares that make him heave his stomach into the toilet and leave him shivering in a ball on sickly yellow bathroom tile. He wants to put the boy on the list of ugly things but he can't -- he wants to put Bautista there too. He can't do that either. 

"You're up early." Bautista doesn't bother asking him why he's awake, there have been too many nights like this for him to be phased. 

"So are you." The words come out a bit brittle, dry with an apathy that Kit has settled nicely into over the years. 

Bautista sits next to him, not close enough that they're touching -- he knows Kit wouldn't like that -- but close enough to reach out and grab Kit if he decides to do something stupid like put his cigarette out on his wrist. 

They sit silently like that for a while, Kit slowly draining his bottle of vodka while Bautista pretends not to watch him from the corner of his eye, eyebrows pinched with a bit of concern. 

"You can ask, you know." It's Kit that speaks first, stubbing his cigarette out on the concrete -- he's already put two out on his wrist and he doesn't think his burnt skin or Bautista would be very fond of another finding it's way there. He's lucky he's got long sleeves on. 

"I'm not going to ask if I'm not going to get an answer." 

Kit purses his lips and blinks, eyes burning from staring at the neon lights for too long. He looks at Bautista and thinks, for a brief moment, that he's very pretty. The way the signs glow lights up half of his face or the tangle of his bed head making Kit's brain slow a little, process the ridiculousness of the thought with a little too much consideration. Or maybe it's the alcohol. 

It's certainly the alcohol when he says: "You're alright. You're okay, I don't know why but you are."

Bautista's eyes narrow and Kit wonders if he sounds crazy: he knows he does deep down. A lunatic who Bautista cannot read no matter how much he tries because he goes and says things like that. Bautista glances down at Kit's now empty bottle of vodka and groans. 

"You're drunk."

"Yeah. It feels nice." The muddy churning of his thoughts and stomach almost help him erase the boy entirely from his head. He knows alcoholism can make your memory fail and for a moment he hopes that happens to him and then he remembers a smile that's infinitely bright and he sudden wants to throw up everything he's drank on the pavement. 

"Come on," Bautista says as he gets to his feet, regarding Kit with a hard look. "Let's go inside. You need to sleep. I'll get you some water." 

Kit's head lolls to the side and he fights the urge to close his eyes and tell Bautista to fuck off. Instead he just says, "Yeah. Okay." The words falling off his tongue slowly, like tree sap. His tongue is lead against the back of his teeth. 

It takes some time for Bautista to get him to his feet and drag him into the motel room to ease him onto the bed. The blankets smell like smoke and Kit's sure that's just his imagination but it makes him fell horrible all the same. He rolls over, facing the ceiling and grins at Bautista who's coming back from the sink with a glass of water. 

"Smells like smoke in here," he says and the grin on his face is mangled. 

"Drink," orders Bautista, "and then sleep. You're going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow and I'm not going to baby you all morning." 

He sips hesitantly at the water and wrinkles his nose. "Tastes like fire." 

Bautista rolls his eyes and Kit wants to laugh at that but instead he just downs half the glass and flops back, feeling like he's moving through a sea of quicksand. Bautista disappears behind closed eyelids and the last thing Kit remembers before he falls into a dark and dreamless sleep is a warm voice murmuring the words _my prince_ into his ear ever so softly. 


End file.
